Americans reluctant to share sex, salary details on web

Reuters Staff

3 Min Read

NEW YORK (Reuters Life!) - Although many American workers have embraced social media sites such as Facebook or LinkedIn, they are uncomfortable about sharing information about their sex lives or salaries, according to a new survey.

The poll of 2,118 adults showed that slightly more than three out of four participate in a social network site but they lean more toward posting things like restaurant reviews or vacation photos.

“In this era of over-sharing, people tend to clam up on a couple of topics, one of which is salary,” said Rusty Rueff a career expert at Glassdoor.com, an employment website that commissioned the Harris poll.

“We’ve yet to get over the salary taboo offline, and it is often to the individual’s benefit to become more comfortable discussing job information and insights with co-workers, friends and even family,” he added in a statement.

The Harris online poll also showed that about 55 to 70 percent of people did not mind sharing non-personal information, but they were more guarded about their children’s activities and their household purchases.

Only two percent said they were comfortable sharing information about their sex life or their salary details. Employees were also more inclined to share relationship status than employment status.

Rueff said that fear and societal norms are behind the reluctance to share job and pay information.

More women than men were likely to use social networking sites and people 18 to 34 years old were more inclined to share information on relationships, employment status and career advancement than other age groups, according to the survey.

Women were also more apt to share non-job related information on things like relationship status, vacation pictures and shopping trips.

College graduates were more likely to share job search information. People living in the northeast of the United States were the least forthcoming in sharing information, followed by residents in the west and south. Midwesterners were actually the most open about their jobs.